Shilen barrel not shooting very well???

I got a new shilen 308 barrel recently, it has a 340 neck and custom throated. Ive got about 200 rss through it and am not impressed. It is probably a 1moa barrel at 100 yds.

I think something was machined improperly in the chambering/ throating. When I use my hornady oal gauge to determine distance to the lands I come up about 0.1" shorter than the dummy rounds. If I tap the gauge with light to moderate force the bullet seats deeper and "hits a brick wall". This measurement is exactly identical to the dummy rounds I sent shilen. I marked a bullet with a sharpie and do this again, when the bullet first stops I take it out and only get marks on 1/4 of the bullet. If I continue and force the bullet until it stops I get marks all the way around it, like I would expect.

Initially I thought this was a bur and shooting it would erode it, but after 200 rds of poor accuracy and no change I'm thinking some thing was cut off axis to the bore

What else could it be???

My loads have been lapua brass 168 SMK and 175 SMK with varget powder ranging from lite to near max, length identical to dummy rounds and 30 thous short of dummy rounds.

Please help

Shilen are good people. Give em' a call, see what they say. I'm sure they'll tell you to send it back for them to look at and they'll replace it if there's anything wrong. Get on the phone.

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Originally Posted by mugsie

Shilen are good people. Give em' a call, see what they say. I'm sure they'll tell you to send it back for them to look at and they'll replace it if there's anything wrong. Get on the phone.

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That's what I did today, the gentleman I spoke with could not have been more helpful. He asked me to send it back so they could look at. He said not to worry they have the best warranty in the business they will either fix or replace it. After getting off the phone I'm now even more convinced I bought from the right barrel manufacturer.

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Originally Posted by Banjobob

That's what I did today, the gentleman I spoke with could not have been more helpful. He asked me to send it back so they could look at. He said not to worry they have the best warranty in the business they will either fix or replace it. After getting off the phone I'm now even more convinced I bought from the right barrel manufacturer.

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You probably talked with Wade Hull. Great guys. A competitive shooter. Been to the shop a couple of times for the Shilen Swap Meet. If you have a problem, they will bend over backwards to help their customers.

Luck with your barrel, Tim

Shilen makes Great barrels!!!!
Wade is a Great guy, you have nothing to worry about.

Friend of mine has a 17cal barrel that pulls 3 MOA from a 'name' Australian gun plumber. Gunsmith has shrugged and walked away from it ... Shilen has NOT and has requested it back.

I respect a company like that immensely.
Cheers...
Con

Bob

Very often two seperate seating depths with the Hornady case guage is a result of runout in the case and tight tolerances in the Case and chamber.
I've run into that problem a few times. The bullet gets pushed out at an angle and contacts the freebore. Give it a shove and it straightens out and continues to the lands.
Needing to shove with the hornady setup is never ideal.
Modifying the case neck ID or OD or both to get a sloppier fit has always solved the problem for me.

Won't make your barrel shoot any better tho.

Before I sent the barrel back I tried the Hornady again and I had no problems, the bullet went right to length without needing a shove. This was after approximately 200 rds down the pipe. So I'm guessing the original problem was either operator error on my part or a bur or something that eventually eroded away. The accuracy never improved from start to finish so I'll see what Shilen has to say.

I've not lost any confidence in Shilen and in fact its just the opposite, so much so that I ordered another Shilen from Jim this week.

I've had issues with two of their barrels. Both were "pre-fits" that I bought from Brownell's. One, a 308 had the chamber cut about 1/2" short.... the other, a .243 had a off center chamber and horrible chatter marks where the reamer had been cocked and dug in....

These were bought about 4 months apart. Upon calling Brownell's about the second one they informed me that they were no longer selling the Shilen pre-fit barrels due to excessive returns..

Now this has been several years ago and I was told that Shilen had had some turn over of personnel which had led to the issues.

The 308 was sent back to Shilen not once but twice before the problem was corrected. With the 243 they replaced the barrel as there was no way to fix it and maintain the 26" length.

I'm still waiting for word on my barrel I sent back. But the barrel I recently ordered from Jim, 30" 308, could not have been better. Shot 0.5" all day and got as low as 0.32 once, 5 shore groups ctc.